Working At Home

John was up at 6:30 and soon after he left for work I got up. I toasted
one of the scones left over from yesterday morning and ate it along with
some of the canned peaches that I'd had opened. One of my prizes from
Costco was a surprise prize in a three-pack of Classico Tomato and Basil.
The prize was a round, flat pancake of rubber, one of those jar openers,
like the one my Mom and Dad had forever. I hadn't been able to find one in
any of the grocery stores that we frequented, and hadn't really been
motivated to try and find it on-line. Instead, it just fell out of the
group packaging for the three-pack! Wow.

I used the rubber grip to open my jar of peaches and I was very happy.

Yes, I'm very easily pleased, which is a fun and good thing. And the cold
peaches were just yummy with the toasted scone. Fezzik sat and watched me
very, very closely and actually got some of my scone, so I toasted another
one and ate that as well and gave a bit to Fezzik. He was coughing this
morning. The coughs were deep lung coughs that frightened me a little bit
because if he caught a cold on top of everything else it could get really
ugly quickly, but I thought it would be good for him to sleep inside during
the day, while I was here.

So he did.
One funny thing was finding that his water cooler, outside, was frozen
solid, so I kept his water dish in the house well filled. It's good for
him to drink plenty of liquids to fight off the cold, I think.

I found that work was really, really easy without all the
interruptions that I get at work. I got more done today, I think, than I
normally accomplish in some weeks. A status report, a set of minutes, a
design document, and two coding template mockups just rolled on out, with a
break for chili cheese dogs (yes, Fezzik got half of one of my chili dogs),
chocolate milk, and apple juice. Lots of liquids helped me feel pretty
good, especially since I ran the gas fireplace for the only heat I really
needed. The fireplace pretty much just heats the kitchen and living room
area and that's all I really needed, but the house heating system is the
one that has the humidifier built into its workings. So I did need the
extra liquids.

The bar stool I was using as a chair made sure that I got up and stretched
every once in a while, which was good, and that helped me remember to get
some liquids. I was very happy with the resulting setup after I put a
dictionary under the monitor. The counter is deeper than my desk at work,
even, and the stool actually has some pretty good back support.

Fezzik napped, wandered out for short periods of time and banged to be let
in when he wanted in and, all together, moved a bit more easily today than
I've seen for a while. He had some problems, still, on the kitchen floor
right after sleeping on the floor for a few hours, but I'm getting more of
a sense of a pattern. When he's still for a long time he is just really
stiff all over, when he's been outside and wandering around, even in this
cold, or maybe especially in this cold weather, he actually moves a lot
more easily. The real cold is still taking a lot more out of him. The day
time temps today were in the low 30's and the night time lows are going to
be in the teens. He sleeps a lot when he gets back inside.

By 3:30 I'd finished most of what I'd wanted to do, and I could think of
more things, but with a napping Fezzik, I felt like napping myself. So I
took an hour long nap when Fezzik decided he wanted out for a while. He
did just fine outside and I napped happily in my very cold bedroom with my
very warm blankets and pillows. When it was 4:30, I got up and finished a
good number of the things I'd gotten to think about when I was getting
ready to sleep, and I worked through to 6:30, when John called. Getting in
a 8-6:30 day with an hour break for a nap and not spending a cent more on
food or drinks was pretty keen.

I felt like soup and bread and so I thawed a bag of the split pea soup I'd
made a month or so ago and frozen. There was half a loaf of ciabatta in
the freezer, which was mildly freezer burned, so I pulled it out of the
freezer, sprayed it with water, wrapped it in foil, stuck it in the toaster
oven at 350 and prayed a little. It came out tender in the center and
crisp on the edges and the freezer burned stuff just pulled right off, and
it was perfect to have with soup. I poured a little olive oil and basalmic
vinegar as well for the bread and it was really, really good. The soup had
mellowed and smoothed out with the time in the freezer and it was still
smoky with the ham hock, and with some addition of water it was that
perfect, creamy consistency that only slow cooked split pea soup can have.

After our dinner, I took a bunch of the food mix and warmed it up a little
in my soup bowl, added a small sprinkle of garlic and then mixed it with
the dry food. Fezzik dove right in and even ate his vitamins and
glucosamin tablets without any protest and then walked right on out the
door without any problems. When he banged on the door to be let back in
half an hour later it was without any trace of a wobble, so I think that
today really was good for him. There's no more coughing and he seems to be
very content. A good thing. He's moving a lot more easily, and maybe it's
due to the cold or even his new food. It would be kinda cool.

In two weeks we're leaving for Portland for Orycon. I really hadn't
thought Fezzik would make it that far after how bad he was in September, but
it's starting to look as if he will with only the minor problems he's been
having the last few weeks. His lymph nodes are definitely not getting any
worse this week. John and I talked things over and we'll try and see if we
can board him with the All-Pets vets, in case he has any problems they'll
be able to take care of him and they love him a lot. I don't think it'd be
fair to the Goodells to leave him with them when he is as fragile and
sometimes unable as he is. They'll feed him his pills and he should do
okay, I think. Still, it's interesting being able to plan that far when it
all seems day to day right now.

I spent a lot of the evening, while John was watching Monday Night Football
catching up on the journal. Sorry for the sprints, but it's astonishingly
easy to write journal stuff while I have a computer handy by the TV, since
I don't really have to pay much attention to the TV while writing. After I
was caught up, John popped a bag of popcorn and the three of us sat and ate
it. Fezzik lay nearby and caught what he could, and stared intently at
anything he couldn't until it was flicked in his direction. Eventually, he
got up and picked up all the pieces that were out of his reach when he was
lying down and then sat and watched us gravely while we tossed him more
pieces. It was really fun watching him as he was content, intent and
focussed about what he was doing but not frantic in any way. Just patient
and single-minded.

It was really keen to just watch him like that. He's still got his brain
and personality and desires. It's odd having that as a very good thing and
knowing that that could cause a good deal of pain if his body fails him
completely and his mind and personality are still there, as patient and as
steady as ever. Not that that is sure or even totally probable.

Mei called us a couple times tonight about her company name and it was
interesting listening to John talk with her about it as much from deducing
what it was she was saying on the other end as anything. I think it'll
work out, she's trying very hard to figure it all out and do the things
that will make her business name unique and fit her clients as well. Is
interesting listening to all the ways it could play out. It'll be
interesting to see if she really likes what she ends up with or if all the
logic that five people can generate isn't anything like asking customers.

Sleep wasn't until late as the Monday Night Football game was very close
near the end. Fezzik did go out soon before we went to sleep and came back
pretty quickly, and then at 2 a.m. I woke up to his panting at the doorway,
so I let him outside. A little worried about leaving him outside with the
temperature in the teens, when I heard him on the stairs, I asked John to
see what he was doing. He was just going down the stairs to meander about
the lawn and bark at something he saw, and then he made it, just fine, up
the stairs and lay on his bed and wouldn't budge when John went out to ask
him if he wanted to come in. Both John and I slept really badly after
that, John eventually went into the livingroom to sleep there as his
tossing and turning kept me even more awake. Fezzik, in the meantime,
didn't come in at all and didn't bang on the door to be let in. He seemed
like he wanted the frigid cold.